Murdoc thinks it’s safe to assume that any online petition for a controversial subject that garners more than 100 signatures suffers from at least some fraudulence, but it appears that the big petition to reconsider the result of the Brexit referendum is really getting hammered by bots. Yet the BBC and others were touting the numbers as meaningful yesterday as MO had noted.

By Sunday afternoon in the UK, the national broadcaster deigned to report that Parliament was investigating the petition for fraud.

Other liberal media scions also pounced on the petition.

But 4Chan’s posters had set up scripts and bots to add fake names to the petition at an impossible rate, spamming it with unlikely addresses in ‘Ghana’ and elsewhere.

Though this appears to show that hackers are responsible for many of the signatures, Murdoc has little doubt that many Britons who truly wish for a re-vote signed as well. But their honest wishes will be lost in the noise of a massive spamming. That’s too bad (honestly) but maybe it will help bring an end to the online petition silliness.

People act like petitions at WhiteHouse.gov and MoveOn.org and wherever matter. They don’t. Elections matter.

Murdoc would be more concerned about the Brexit result (especially short-term) if it weren’t for the cast of politicians speaking out so loudly against it. The fact that they are so strongly opposed tells Murdoc that it must be a fairly decent idea.